Heineken: Making a BIG digital entrance

Whilst it is not their first digital campaign, ‘The Entrance’ recently launched by Heineken really shows how their approach to the medium has evolved. For a start, they have launched this campaign online first, following it up later with spots on TV, which is still not the norm (even though in some cases it should be!). They have also used their online channels to offer people a deeper understanding of the campaign and their brand, with fantastic use of both Facebook and YouTube.

The video itself is great – guy walks into a party and everyone loves him. He effortlessly greets individuals in a way which shows that he understands them, and in return he is the ‘king of the party’ (This is obviously before he has drunk copious amounts of the brand in question and embarrassed himself by falling over or insulting someones dress!).

Although you can view all the campaign videos via You Tube if you really want to, if you are on the Heineken Facebook page you are asked to ‘like’ the page in order to see more of the campaign content. Once you have done so you can not only view the main campaign ad, but you are also offered the choice to find out more about all the characters the main guy greets in the ad. These are really nice little additional videos which give a great depth to the campaign and added intrigue.

I love the fact that you can ‘play’ and interact with the campaign, in a way that only digital will allow you to do. It is also obvious that the marketing teams and agencies involved with this really thought about an integrated approach which would translate well across different mediums.

It seems that they are also pushing for more global brand consistency, having this campaign work globally for them with the same format and messaging in an effort to tighten things up. They have brought their multiple Facebook pages together to make just one and have also done the same with their You Tube channels. They have changed their logo, are standardising bottle and can designs, and are also working on their Global Website. This is something I wish more brands would do. By offering a more consistent brand with global campaigns you can still have the regional marketing teams support these with smaller localised campaigns, but will have a much stronger overall brand at the end of the day, and probably save a fortune on campaign and agency costs too!

All this work is ahead of the launch of their Facebook store, making them the first alcohol beverage to sell via this channel. The company hope to encourage their users to suggest the types of produce they should be making and selling, but will start with branded clothes and merchandise.